


One Day in Velen

by Isis



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Foreshadowing, Gen, Groundhog Day, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-19 22:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17610614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Geralt of Rivia has a bad day...over and over again.





	One Day in Velen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Exile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/gifts).



> Thanks to Wednesday for beta.

It had been a miserable night, as most nights were in Velen. At some point the mist had turned to rain and extinguished the dregs of Geralt’s campfire; the canvas he’d strung between trees for shelter had eventually sagged and spilled the puddle of water it had collected onto his feet, just as it had the previous night. Geralt stayed in his bedroll until he really, truly, had to piss, then heaved himself out of his makeshift tent and added his water to the stinking swamp that surrounded him. 

At least he’d be going back to Lindenvale today. With the coin from the merchant who’d put up the contract notice, he could spend the night in the tavern. In a bed. It would be straw ticking, not feathers, but he didn’t care. It would be dry, and at the moment that was all he cared about.

He gathered the driest sticks he could find and added them to the embers in his fire ring, then made the sign of Igni. The wood sputtered and smoked but didn’t catch, so he fished out some oil from his pack. Oddly, there was a vial of Black Blood in with the potions and blade oils. _Thought I used the last of it yesterday. Guess I had an extra._

With a splash of oil on the kindling, the fire caught. Not that he had anything to cook – bread and cheese was an easy breakfast, and he still had a bunch of grapes left, fancy that – but the flames warmed him, and as the rain moderated to a typical Velen drizzle he thought he might even have dried out a little. From soggy to merely moist, anyway.

He packed up his things, whistled for Roach, then put out his fire. Time to head back to Lindenvale with...wait.

“What’s this, Roach?” he asked, running his hand down his mare’s withers. “What did you do with my trophy, hmm?” He ducked under her neck and checked the other side, even though he always hung his trophy from the right side of the saddle, where a leather cord dangled. “Did you knock it off in the woods?” 

She nickered in reply and stomped a little in place.

“Yeah, I don’t like this place, either. But hold on for a few minutes. Gotta get the trophy, or we don’t get paid.”

Geralt followed her trail with his witcher senses. She was a smart horse and hadn’t ranged far; she’d drunk at the stream, grazed on the grasses that grew along its bank, and then slept under the spreading branches of an ancient oak tree. _Probably stayed drier than I did._ There was no sign of the water hag’s head. 

He retraced his steps back to his camp, where Roach was waiting placidly. “All right, girl,” he said as he strapped his bags onto the saddle, then mounted. “Let’s go see if we can find her lair. Might have something in it I can use to convince the alderman I’ve fulfilled the contract.”

Once on the road he turned south, toward Lake Wyndamer’s boggy arm where he’d battled the water hag the day before. The dirt of the road had become muddy, sucking at Roach’s hooves with each step, and it was slow going even that short distance. He dismounted at the point where the shallow lake came closest to the road, near a large granite boulder, and began walking through the marsh.

Geralt heard the squelching of mud and the rustling of shrubs as he neared the lakeshore. _Drowners_ , he thought, pulling out his silver sword. He examined the blade, frowning. The coating of necrophage oil had completely worn off. _Must have landed more blows on the water hag than I remembered._ He had a good supply, though, so he reached into his pack for the bottle; it was the work of a moment to coat the blade with the viscous poison. He corked the bottle and was returning it to his pack when the clod of mud struck him in the left eye.

“Great. Another one,” he muttered, wiping the mud from his eye with the back of his hand. It would be a tougher battle than just a few drowners, but on the bright side, he’d be able to take a second trophy to replace the missing one. This must be the sister of the one he’d killed yesterday, he guessed, though he wasn’t sure if necrophages formed families the way humans did. _Good thing I found that extra Black Blood._ In one quick motion he grabbed the flask, uncorked it, and downed the contents. 

Not a moment too soon, for the water hag was on him, her long claws raking at his armor and whatever unprotected skin she could reach. His silver sword whistled through the air, but she’d already retreated to the shoreline and was scooping up another handful of thick, stinking mud. He deflected the missile with Quen; when she burst from the marshy ground next to him again, his sword was ready, and this time he managed to hit her shoulder.

It was a long and unpleasant battle, made longer and more unpleasant by the score of drowners who had surfaced and joined in, just as they had on the day before when he’d fought the other water hag. By the time he had dispatched all the monsters, and had cut off the head of the water hag for a replacement trophy, Geralt was covered in mud and necrophage blood. The drizzle hadn’t been enough to wash these off; he suspected it had instead helped the foul liquids to soak through his leather armor. Though maybe it was just his sweat. Either way, he was cold and wet and miserable, and stank enough of swamp and swamp thing that he suspected he’d need to use Axii on Roach to get her to carry him back to camp where he could clean off.

“On second thought, maybe we should camp somewhere else,” he told Roach, as he fastened his new trophy to her saddle. “Seems like there was someone there with a taste for necrophage heads.”

Roach let him mount and began to trot back toward the north, just as the light rain finally quit. A mile or so past the clearing where he’d camped before, they crossed a stream, and he turned east and followed it until he found a good spot. Not quite as nice as the one he’d used the last two nights, but it had some high ground he could sleep on and an open area where he could lay his things to dry and Roach could graze. He dismounted and took off his saddlebags, and then the saddle, giving the mare a quick rubdown before turning her loose. He always felt guilty about saddling her up again before he turned in for the night, but he’d had to make quick exits often enough that he’d got in the habit, and anyway, she never seemed to mind much.

Geralt stripped and bathed in the cold stream, washing off the sweat and muck, then cleaned his armor as best he could and laid it out to dry. The sun shone weakly through the overcast, but it didn’t provide much heat, so he built a fire and ate some of the food from his pack, watching Roach as she munched her own afternoon snack.

By evening he and his clothes had dried enough to be almost comfortable. To his surprise he still had a small package of venison at the bottom of a saddlebag – he was sure he’d eaten the last of it the night before. He roasted it over the fire and ate it with bread and his last apple, washing it all down with a bottle of lager. He gauged the sky, decided it was likely to rain in the night, and put up his tent before calling Roach in to be saddled. Then he took off his boots, and crawled in to sleep.

* * *

Sure enough, Geralt woke the next day with wet feet and a foul mood. He climbed out of his bedroll and pissed against a tree, still groggy with sleep, then turned toward the firepit to start the work of getting a fire going in the rain. Then he paused. Frowned, looked around.

“Is someone playing a trick on me?” he asked the air. Unsurprisingly, nobody answered. He turned in a full circle. There was the tree he’d hung his food from, and there was the stream that ran clear over the mossy rocks. It was his camp – but it was the camp he’d spent two nights at and then left yesterday morning. It wasn’t the place he’d made camp last night.

He whistled for Roach, and she peered out from behind a tree. The water hag’s head was no longer hanging from the saddle. 

“What the fuck?” he said. Roach whinnied. It sounded like exasperated agreement. She was a smart horse. She could probably tell something was weird, too.

Ignoring the firepit, he reached for his pack and started pulling things out. Bread, cheese, fruit, potions. The vial of Black Blood he’d thought he’d used on the first water hag. That he’d _definitely_ used on the second. He set it down thoughtfully, then upended the pack over the damp ground in the meager shelter of a tree, spilling things everywhere. Grabbing the saddlebags, he did the same with them. Then he looked at the mess on the ground.

There were four bottles of Redanian lager, which didn’t mean anything. He hadn’t noticed how much he’d had in his stash when he’d drunk one the night before. But he recognized the paper-wrapped package of venison. He unwrapped it, and looked at the raw meat. It was a length of backstrap, the lean and tender meat from the back of a red deer. 

Last night he’d seared it over his fire and roasted it just enough to cook it through, then ate it with bread and a slightly-bruised apple. He looked through the food from his pack, and yes, there was that same apple, complete with bruise.

_What the fuck is going on?_

He repacked his bags swiftly and methodically and then fastened them to Roach’s saddle. Vaulting into the saddle, he clicked his tongue for Roach to get going, and when they reached the road, he turned her north and urged her into a trot. To hell with the water hag. To hell with Lindenvale. He was getting out of here. 

They crossed the stream leading to the place he’d camped the night before – the place he’d thought he’d camped, anyway, since he’d woken up in his other camp – and kept going. The road dipped and curved, winding around hummocks and bogs, but mostly went northwest, with thick forest stretching out as far as he could see to either side, which wasn’t very far, due to the misty drizzle. Probably there were wolves there, and wild dogs, and maybe nekkers and ghouls. He didn’t care. 

After an hour, he slowed Roach to a walk. He didn’t need to tire her out just because he was feeling spooked. They ought to be getting to a crossroads soon. He thought he remembered a small village, even smaller than Lindenvale, but they might have a tavern. At the very least he could pay one of the villagers a few coins so he could dry his things out under a roof. 

The road went over a small rise, and as he crested it he could see that on the west the forest gave way to a marsh, with a finger of water stretching toward the road. A chill went down his spine. Of course Lake Wyndamer would be on his west the entire way to Lindenvale. But this particular spot looked very, very familiar.

There was the granite boulder, where he’d dismounted the day before, and the day before that. There was the shoreline. Though the rain made it hard to see details, he could see movement, doubtless drowners scurrying in and out of the water. He would bet there was a water hag somewhere there, too – the water hag he’d already killed. Twice.

He reined Roach to a stop, and considered. The water hag’s lair was south of his campsite. He’d left his campsite and ridden north. Somehow the road had curved around without him noticing it. But the road hadn’t done that when he’d originally ridden out from Lindenvale to undertake the contract. Obviously there was magic at work.

Fine. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to kill the water hag. Maybe she was some powerful wizard’s girlfriend – which, to each his own, Geralt supposed, but that was definitely a weird choice. But he hadn’t killed her yet – or rather, he hadn’t killed her again, yet – and the magic had not let him leave, so that couldn’t be the answer. 

But maybe if he went back to his campsite and idled away the whole of the miserable day, the next morning he’d be free to go?

 _Worth a try, anyway._ He urged Roach to walk on, and very carefully did _not_ look at the lake to see if the water hag was about. They turned off at the first stream, the one that led to the campsite where he’d awoken that morning, and she obediently went to the hillock where he’d set up his camp before. He dismounted and took off the saddle and saddlebags, gave her a quick rubdown, and then as she wandered off he turned to the sodden firepit. Might as well string up his canvas shelter and start a fire. At least he wasn’t covered with mud and necrophage blood. 

He found a copy of _In Beast’s Clothing_ among his things, and settled in to read for a while, but the poorly-written treatise on lycanthropy wasn’t all that interesting, and it didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. He drank a bottle of lager. He napped for a while, his back to a tree and his feet stretched out towards the warmth of the fire. Finally, bored, he got to his feet and wandered around his camp, looking for anything that might be useful. 

Near the stream he found bloodmoss and celandine, and arenaria grew at the edge of the clearing where Roach grazed. He picked a bagful of each and added them to the saddlebag that held his alchemical ingredients. He returned to his camp and spent some time brewing up a bottle of enhanced necrophage oil, since he had had all the ingredients already other than the arenaria.

By then the rain had quit, and night was approaching. Geralt went through his usual routine, packing his bags and saddling Roach; he roasted the venison once more, ate it with the bruised apple and a second bottle of Redanian lager, and went to bed.

* * *

The damn tent had sagged with the rain again, though that didn’t mean anything by itself. He really needed a new tent, and it always rained in Velen. But after he got the fire going with some oil and Igni, he checked his pack: no bloodmoss, no celandine, and no fucking enhanced necrophage oil. He dug through his saddlebags: four bottles of Redanian lager.

“At least I can get drunk,” Geralt muttered, hefting one of the bottles. He considered having Redanian lager for breakfast.

 _No. I need all my wits to figure out just what the hell is going on._ Then _I’m going to get drunk._

He ate his breakfast of bread and cheese and fruit, put out the fire, and whistled for Roach. As he rode toward the boulder by the edge of the lake, he considered his options. Not killing the water hag hadn’t changed anything, so he might as well kill her. At least he’d be able to get coin for the contract, if he ever managed to get back to Lindenvale.

The enhanced necrophage oil had disappeared, but he could still take advantage of his knowledge from his previous fights with the water hag. He prepared his blade and downed the Black Blood before he’d even dismounted; then, screaming with rage, he ran down toward the shoreline, silver sword in hand. Two drowners went down in an instant, and when the water hag showed herself he leaped on her before she had the chance to hurl mud at him. It was a messy kill, but a satisfying one. 

After he’d ridden back to camp – might as well stick with the one he kept waking up in – and washed the blood and mud from his gear, he considered his situation again. Riding north on the road hadn’t worked. Maybe he needed to come at the problem sideways.

He left Roach and most of his gear at his camp, and headed east. He seemed to remember a road on the other side of the forest, and even if there wasn’t, if he went far enough, he’d hit the Pontar River. But after nearly two hours of hiking, he found himself on a high bluff with no obvious way down. Below him was only more forest, as far as he could see. It made no sense; he’d been hiking on level ground, and most of Velen was low and swampy. There was no way he could have been so far above the Pontar. He turned away in disgust.

Maybe to the west, then. But that way lay Lake Wyndamer, and unless he could find a boat he wouldn’t be going any farther. Anyway, by the time he got back to camp it would be too late to go looking. _I’ll try that in the morning. And if I find a boat, I’m taking it all the way to Lindenvale._

The rain quit while he was hiking back to his camp. He built up his fire, roasted his venison, and ate it with that same goddamned apple. Then he drank all four bottles of Redanian lager, one after another.

* * *

In the morning Geralt woke with wet feet and no hangover. He pulled himself out of his bedroll and took a piss, then got his fire started. His pack held the same things it always had. There were four bottles of lager at the bottom of his saddlebag, along with a venison backstrap and a bruised apple. He decided to eat the apple for breakfast. 

The water hag trophy, naturally, had vanished from Roach’s saddle. Well, he knew where to get another. He went over his plan in his mind as he rode toward the lake. Necrophage oil on the silver sword, take the Black Blood potion just before he headed into battle. The water hag would be by the shoreline, to the left, and if he didn’t dawdle he could get the first strike in. Kill the hag and any drowners that ventured too close, take the trophy, and then start looking for a boat.

He was applying the blade oil to his sword when a sudden, horrible thought struck him. He’d thought, a day ago – or had it been two? – that maybe he wasn’t meant to kill the water hag, that by declining to take her head he’d break the cycle. But that had turned out to not be the case. 

What if…

_What if I’m the one that’s supposed to die?_

Geralt felt as though he’d eaten a ball of snakes, and they were all squirming in his stomach, biting at his innards. Just thinking of deliberately allowing the water hag to win, of letting himself be killed, made him want to punch something. Or vomit. Or both. But what else was there to try? He’d ridden north and found himself right back where he’d started. He’d walked east and been stymied by a cliff that shouldn’t have been there. He supposed he could look for a boat, or even try turning Roach south; but he had a terrible feeling that either way, he’d end up back at that goddamned camp.

Well. If he was going to let himself be killed by a water hag, he was going to need some anesthetic. He reined up Roach by the granite boulder, dismounted, and started rooting through his saddlebags. Those four bottles of Redanian lager would be a good start. _Might even be some fisstech in there.…_

His fingers closed around a cloth-wrapped object. Slowly he drew it out of the saddlebag and let it lie in his palm. The ball of snakes in his gut dissolved, and he let out a long breath. In his hand he held the answer to his current dilemma. He didn’t even have to unwrap it; he knew what it was. 

The Eye of Nehaleni.

Geralt hadn’t noticed his witcher medallion vibrating in any particular place, but that could have been because he’d been busy fighting necrophages, or bouncing on Roach, or distracted by the raindrops hitting him. Or because he simply wasn’t paying attention. Now, he was going to pay attention. It wasn’t vibrating now, at any rate. He unwrapped the Eye and activated it anyway, but the scene before him didn’t change. So, no illusion here, no magic.

He mounted again and began riding north, keeping Roach at a slow walk and concentrating on his medallion, not on his surroundings. A few hundred yards after he’d passed the stream that led to his second camp, it gave a barely perceptible buzz – then quit. Frowning, he turned his horse and retraced his path south. Again, the medallion vibrated briefly, then returned to quiescence. No wonder he hadn’t noticed it; when he’d ridden by, before, Roach had been trotting, and it would only have vibrated for a half-second at most, which he’d certainly never notice against the backdrop of Roach’s motion.

Quietly he slipped from the saddle and took the Eye of Nehaleni from his pocket. The road ahead looked perfectly ordinary: forest on both sides, the road curving a little as it disappeared into the misty rain. He activated the Eye, and very subtly, the scene changed.

The forest and the road still stretched out ahead of him. But on the road in front of him were a man and a horse, their backs to him. Immediately Geralt realized that he was looking at himself and Roach. _Like looking into a mirror – except the mirror’s twisted around somehow, so I’m looking at my back instead of my face._ It made him feel a bit dizzy. 

But when he concentrated, he realized that he could see the glass of the mirror, a tiny shimmering discontinuity that intersected the ground and curved back very slightly as it stretched into the forest on each side. Still holding the Eye, he stepped forward, into the glass. His medallion vibrated as his not-quite-reflection took a step forward as well. Then the other Geralt vanished, and his medallion stopped vibrating, and the world ahead of him looked perfectly ordinary again.

He turned, expecting to see Roach standing in the road where he’d left her. She was no longer there. Instead he saw, again, his own back, and the mirror’s subtle shimmer in the air. Cautiously he stepped through the mirror again. His medallion vibrated once and stopped, his double vanished, and Roach reappeared.

“Huh,” he said out loud. “Glad you’re back, Roach.” She ignored him.

Geralt drew his sword and stood facing the mirror for a long moment, where his double had drawn his own sword as well. “Here goes nothing.” Whirling, he raised the sword high and slashed it down against the shimmer of magic. 

There was a sound like the breaking of glass, and the not-quite-reflections of Geralt and his horse disappeared, along with the faint shimmer. Everything else looked exactly as it had. 

_Almost_ exactly. 

There was a bald man on the right side of the road, leaning against a tree, and Geralt was certain he had not been there before. Apparently sensing Geralt’s eyes on him, the man smiled and began to slowly clap his hands.

“Well done, master witcher. You are resourceful, indeed.”

The man looked vaguely familiar, thought Geralt. Hadn’t they spoken in a tavern once, in White Orchard? “Who are you? Did you...do this?” He waved a hand, then realized it was still holding the Eye of Nehaleni, and put it back in his pocket. “Whatever it was. What _was_ it?”

“One question at a time. You may call me Master Mirror. And yes, I did it. It was a test. Which you passed admirably.”

“A _test_ ,” growled Geralt. A deep rage had begun to build inside him. His right hand tightened on the hilt of his sword as he stalked toward the man. “How dare you –”

The end of the sentence never made it out of his mouth. As he whipped his sword around toward “Master Mirror,” the man made a casual gesture with his hand, and suddenly Geralt found himself completely paralyzed. Not just unable to move, but frozen utterly in mid-motion: his lungs could not draw breath, though oddly he felt no need to do so, and although his momentum should have carried him forward to crash into the ground, he simply...stopped. Everything about him had stopped, it seemed, other than his thoughts, which raced around in his head, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“There,” said Master Mirror, smiling complacently. “Ordinarily I’d make you pay for your insolence, but I think you’ll be useful to me in the near future.” He leaned back against the tree and considered Geralt’s motionless form. “Oh, yes, you wanted to know ‘how dare I.’ I dare because I wanted to assess your resourcefulness for myself. There’s only so much one can learn from ballads and songs, you know, and bards do tend to exaggerate.”

 _Now_ Geralt remembered him. He’d said he’d heard Dandelion singing about him and Yennefer, and had sent him to the Nilfgaardian garrison to speak with the captain. What had been the name he’d given? Grim, or Dim, something like that. He’d looked like a common peasant. Clearly, that was far from the truth.

“You were quite entertaining to watch, you know. But you impressed me. I think you’ll be the perfect man for the job I have in mind, though many events must transpire before we get to that...main event.” He turned away as though to leave, then turned back to Geralt. “Until we meet again. Though alas, you won’t remember this.”

Master Mirror made another gesture, and Geralt felt the strange paralysis leave him. But before he could do anything about it, the world went dark.

* * *

It had been a miserable night, as most nights were in Velen. At some point the mist had turned to rain and extinguished the dregs of Geralt’s campfire, though by the time Geralt heaved himself out of his makeshift tent to piss the rain had ended, and the pale sun shone through the trees, casting dappled shadows on the ground.

At least he’d be going back to Lindenvale today. With the coin from the merchant who’d put up the contract notice, he could spend the night in the tavern. In a bed. It would be straw ticking, not feathers, but he didn’t care. It would be dry, and at the moment that was all he cared about.

He gathered the driest sticks he could find and added them to the embers in his fire ring, then made the sign of Igni. The wood sputtered and smoked, but finally caught. Not that he had anything to cook – bread and cheese was an easy breakfast, and he still had a bunch of grapes left, fancy that – but the flames warmed him, and along with the sun’s weak heat he thought he might even have dried out a little. From soggy to merely moist, anyway.

He packed up his things, whistled for Roach, then put out his fire. His mare stepped out from behind a tree, and he fastened the saddlebags in place, making sure not to disturb the water hag’s head that was tied as a trophy to his saddle. 

“Come on, girl,” he said, patting her neck as she began walking toward the road. “I’ll buy you some oats with the coin we’ll get from the contract if you get me to Lindenvale before nightfall.”

And she did.


End file.
